Hi guys,
First of all thanks to everyone involved in this project to make XBMC such an amazing software!
I have been using XBMC on a Raspberrt Pi for a few weeks now and what bugged me the most was the time it took to list my huge library within XBMC Official Remote. Each time I would try to open the "Artists" list it would take almost 1 minute! Things were barely usable at this point!
Thanks to the most recent release things just got a lot better! Thank you for enabling caching on the device! This is a live saver! :-)
However, it caches only things you have already browsed so each time I list another artist releases it take ages to show up! Here is my own little request, ... wouldn't it be possible to force the device to cache the whole library first and proceed with incremental updates when necessary ?
I've been using iPeng (for Squeezebox) for some time now and this is how they proceed. Browsing through the library is super fast and the device update its cache at application startup when the library has been updated.
Thanks again for your time and hard work!

@Blackkatt, mainly for the principle that if something is not there, it can't be buggy. It's easier for the app maintenance, expecially when you are alone. I would be happy if you take in charge this task, to analyze the pros and cons of a change of technology for the remote control part and could be awesome if you could quantify the effort needed.

@digicammad, \m/ I had the same experience (the overlooked)

@srfwx, from what I know at the moment isn't possible query XBMC for incremental updates. Can you explain what you mean with "each time I list another artist releases it take ages" ? You mean that every time you add a new artist in XBMC library you need to updated the device cached library? what's wrong with this?

(2013-04-25 12:15)joethefox Wrote: @srfwx, from what I know at the moment isn't possible query XBMC for incremental updates. Can you explain what you mean with "each time I list another artist releases it take ages" ? You mean that every time you add a new artist in XBMC library you need to updated the device cached library? what's wrong with this?

Hi Joe,
Thanks for your answer.
I mean that :
When I first started XBMC Official remote it took ages to load the artists list, then when I browsed an Artist's discography it took ages to appear too!
Then next time I open the remote, the artists listing is much faster and loading of previously browsed artists discography is fast too. Until I browse another artist discog.... Hence my request to cache the whole library at once.

@srfwx, got it. The first time is normal that it takes more time than the previous version to show the artist's list:
- time to receive the data (the same as the old version) + time to save to idevice disk (new wait time that happens just once every new sync).

But thinking that we can have approximately only a couple of dozens of albums by artist (usually with an XBMC response time under the 1/10 of sec) the app doesn't cache the artist's album but only the upper level, the artists list.
So it's strange because from the app point of view, there are no difference when you enter in the artist's albums the first or the second time.

out of curiosity: how many albums do you have approximately for each artist?

(2013-04-22 19:04)joethefox Wrote: And the 1.3 version has been submitted to apple with this change log:

- new library Wall View mode (only for iOS6)
- new recently added movies Fanart View mode (only for iOS6)
- added option to cache library sections on the disk
- pull the library view to sync the app with XBMC when the library cache is enabled
- added support for movie sets (only for Frodo)
- added support for music "shuffle mode" (only for Frodo)
- added support for music smart playlist (only for Frodo)

Yes. Works. Can confiirm that my complex smart Playlists are working ...
Thx a lot dude. Now - I will order 2 more raspberry PI's - cause I can use these without screen !

I'm closing this thread to encourage people to start asking questions in their own threads, so they don't get lost among 123 pages. This thread will still be useful for news and updates on the first post, but should not be used for more.